Editorial: More sacrifice and compromise needed as the City Council closes in on approving a budget and tax rate

When the Memphis City Council’s newest member returns to the council-administration budget jousting Tuesday he wants to bring more compromise and sacrifice to the effort to approve a budget and set a tax rate to fund it.

Lee Harris is key to that because, due to a long-planned family vacation, he missed last Tuesday’s marathon council meeting, where one of the more contentious budget issues failed on a 6-6 vote: fully restoring the 4.6 percent pay cut the city placed on city workers in 2011.

When the council takes up the third and final reading of the budget Tuesday, it is likely that the pay cut issue will be reconsidered. Harris said he will vote to fully restore the money if certain conditions are met, the main ones being that the city employee unions agree to drop a lawsuit challenging the wage cut and that the unions do not ask for back wages.

Harris said the city’s dire budget situation requires sacrifice on both sides of the budget issue, and he wants to see peace between the administration of Mayor A C Wharton and the unions, along with peace between the council and the administration, so the city can begin moving forward.

He is right about sacrificing. That is why we think that the full 4.6 percent pay cut should not be restored. The city can use the $16 million savings to pay down its debt, build up its reserves or, better yet, lessen the size of the city property tax increase the council probably will pass to recoup lost property tax revenue. The savings also could be used to pay the increased cost of running government and act on an admonition from the state comptroller to start paying down the city’s debt. A possible compromise would be to restore half the pay cut beginning on July 1, the start of the 2013-1014 fiscal year.

The unions should not forget that the council voted to cut 400 city employees, 100 before July 1 and the remaining 300 either through retirement or resignation. That 100 and those among the 300 who are not ready to leave their jobs earlier than planned will be making a huge sacrifice.

Here is another sacrifice. Council members were almost giddy when they voted last week to transfer all of the city streetlights to Memphis Light Gas and Water Division, a move that will save the city $12 million. The change, however, will mean that Memphians will see a new fee on their MLGW bills, which, in truth, will be nothing more than a tax increase on top of any tax increase the council passes Tuesday.